Harry was back in ten minutes or so, reporting that Phin had agreed to keep the price up, and the three conspirators walked briskly back to school.
The next morning Hansel and Harry were extremely busy, so busy that each was obliged to absent himself from one recitation, a thing much easier to do than to explain subsequently. By dinner time they had canvassed the town of Bevan Hills very thoroughly, and had between them discovered just five rooms which might possibly answer the requirements of Messrs. Sanger and Shill. And in each case they had secured the refusal of the apartment. The landladies had given up hope of renting the empty rooms that year, and when Hansel or Harry professed to be unable to reach a decision, and asked that they be given an option for a few days, their request was readily granted, especially as they in no case expressed dissatisfaction with the price quoted.
“I guess now,” said Harry, “it’s up to Sanger to either go across the railroad with his Dutch lady or take Phin’s room.”
Had Sanger been suspiciously inclined the solicitude displayed by Harry and Hansel and Bert during the next few days might have suggested more to him than it did.
“Found a room yet?” they asked him regularly every morning and afternoon, and Sanger would shake his head and acknowledge that he hadn’t. At first he was rather superior about it, seeking to convey the idea that he had a good many apartments in view, and was only undecided which was more worthy of the honor of sheltering him, but on the third day there was a worried, perplexed tone in his voice.
“No,” he said, “I haven’t found a room yet, and I don’t believe I’m going to. The landladies are crazy, I guess; asking me three and even three and a half at this time of year! And there are only three or four decent rooms in town, anyway.”
“Well, you only want one,” said Bert cheerfully.
“Yes, but I can’t get the promise of even one! Everywhere I go they tell me that some one has the refusal of the room just now, but if I’ll leave my name they’ll let me know in a few days. Why, we’ve got to get out of our present quarters by Friday!”
“Too bad you couldn’t have taken that room at Mrs. Freer’s,” said Hansel. “That would have been a pretty good place for you fellows.”